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“Yes. Their SUV got a flat when they hit us.” He glanced at her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded but winced as she touched her head. She had a large lump over her right ear. “I’ll live. You?”
“Fine,” he growled. “Fucking hell. I didn’t see them coming.”
“That was the whole point,” she surmised. “Can we make it to Bern?”
“Yes, but that’s going to be annoying.” He pointed to the hole in the windshield. The wind made a whistling noise as it came into the truck. The interior temperature had plummeted. No way was she taking off her coat now.
“Do you think they’ll come after us?” she asked running her fingers over the bump on her head.
“No. They don’t know where we’re going.”
She let out a sigh. “I suppose that’s good then.”
He glanced at her. “Not really.”
“What do you mean?” What the hell was he talking about? “Wasn’t the whole point to get away without them killing us? We did that.”
He shook his head. “The whole point was to get away without them noticing us. Now they know for sure we’re alive and on the move. They know where we’re likely to be headed as well.”
“I thought you just said they didn’t know where we’re going?” Maybe the hit on the head had been harder than she thought. None of this is making any sense.
“They don’t know we’re going to Bern, but my guess is they know you want to meet with Damon. You don’t have to be a genius to know the last chance you’ll have to talk to him is today at the hotel because he’s flying out tonight. You won’t call him because you don’t think he’ll believe you. Even if you did, you’d still have to see him to give him the files. You don’t trust sending it to him in an email. That means they know we’re coming. They’ll be set up at the hotel waiting for us.”
Her heart took off at a gallop. “Y-you’re saying we’re walking into some kind of ambush?”
His lips were a flat, hard seam and he jerked a gaze to her, then back to the road. “Yes, and there’s no way around it as long as you want to see Damon. Killing us on the mountain or in the town was always preferable but it was never their last chance.”
Allegra slumped against the door. So, she either gave up and let the announcement be made which would destroy the company and all she worked for once she managed to get the information out, or she had to face an army determined to kill her. What kind of a choice was that? Save her own skin or save the lives of all those people who would die taking Cytoxine. She just didn’t have a choice.
CHAPTER15
The train rideto Geneva had been quiet. Xavier had kept his eyes peeled for anyone looking remotely like part of a hit squad, but he hadn’t seen a single assassin. Mostly the railcar they were in was filled with commuters and businesspeople. He noted a few students and young people with large rucksacks who appeared to be traveling around Europe.
He glanced over at Allegra. She was staring out the window next to her seat. When they’d arrived at the train station just down from the hotel in Bern, he’d given her the choice of not going to Geneva. They could go into the police station and tell the local cops everything they knew. She could contact the FDA directly if she wanted and give them the data. There were options. That’s what he wanted her to know.
She’d listened and then pointed out the difficulties with his plan. They had no proof of the gunmen other than people asking about them in a small town. They’d never be able to prove they were hit on purpose because the SUV would be gone. There was the bullet hole in the windshield but realistically, it could’ve been made by a rock. There was no damning proof of anything. It was all circumstantial at best, she’d pointed out.
And she was right.
She sighed in the seat next to him. “I know you want me to call the FDA, but honestly, even if I send them the data, it’s not official. It’s coming from me but all Graham has to do is say I have a vendetta against him and that would cast doubt on the validity of the data. It might delay approval, but it would only give Graham and whoever he is working with a chance to kill me and then say I had just lost it and was having some kind of mental breakdown.” She met his gaze. “You understand that I need to do this, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I get it.”
“But you don’t.” She held his gaze.
“I’m sorry?”
She touched his arm. “You don’t have to do this. You’ve got no stake in this. You can just walk away and go back to your normal life. It would be much safer for you. I would like you to be safe. The thought of something happening to you because of me is just…I want you to walk away.”
He stared at her. No stake in this? Someone had tried to kill him. Worse someone had tried to kill her. He had a stake. Allegra was his stake. If anything happened to her, he wouldn’t recover. He would go to the ends of the earth for her because she was beautiful and fun and smart and amazing but mostly because she’d brought him back to life. That was her gift to him. And he meant to repay her tenfold if it took him the rest of that life to do it.
“I won’t leave you to face this on your own, honey. I’m going with you. It’s my own choice and I’m making it.” He held her gaze and waited until he saw her give a slight nod. “Now,” he continued, “we’ll be there soon. The station is only a few blocks from the Jasmine Door Hotel. Once we get there, the clock will be ticking, so we need to move quickly. Where do you think Damon will be?”
“His suite. He gets up at five thirty each morning, works out for an hour, then takes a shower and has breakfast. We’ll arrive around seven a.m., so he’ll be at breakfast.”
“Okay. We’ll head to his suite and you can tell him everything.”
